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Rights abuses surge ahead of historic election

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Reporters are not allowed to photograph or film polling booths

Mizzima News

On 7 November, the Burmese people will go to nationwide polls for the first time in 20 years. But contesting political parties will have seldom been seen or heard of in the state media. Independent websites have already been censored, and foreign journalists will not be allowed to cover the spectacle. Thirty-three IFEX members, including Mizzima News and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), are lobbying the governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting this week in Hanoi to put pressure on Burma to respect free expression - essential if the elections are to be seen as credible, they say.

The IFEX members reiterated the need for the election process to be more inclusive, participatory and transparent. But according to Mizzima and SEAPA, rights abuses by the ruling junta have surged in Burma ahead of the polls.

For instance, candidates have not been given equal access to the media to voice their platforms. Democratic Party (Myanmar), the Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics and the 88 Generation Student Youths (Union of Myanmar) were denied access to the state-controlled media because of "improper" campaign messages. Other parties have complained about having their broadcasts or articles censored.

Amid the heavy censorship, the local independent media have been able to exercise relative fairness in reporting ahead of the election, says Mizzima. But no media is allowed to publish or broadcast election news that might "undermine the state."

The restriction applies to stories about the 1990 general elections, which Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landside. The junta refused to recognise the results and has kept Suu Kyi locked away in prison or under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years. Her current house arrest expires on 13 November. NLD has denounced the election as unfair and undemocratic and is boycotting it, leaving the race without a strong opposition.

Foreign journalists are also being denied access. The Election Commission said there was no need to grant visas for foreign reporters because there are local reporters in the country who work for foreign media. The 33 IFEX members are calling on ASEAN countries to put pressure on the Burmese authorities to allow the media and international observers into Burma.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is also using the ASEAN meeting to engage with the Burmese authorities, said, "This is essentially a sham election. We have long called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the permitting of legitimate opposition in Burma, and we want the international community to retain as much pressure as possible on the regime which still does not respect anything that resembles democracy or a properly open election."

The repression of freedom of expression has been heavy for online media. Mizzima, Thailand-based magazine "The Irrawaddy," and Oslo-based "Democratic Voice of Burma", had their website hacked, shutting them down anywhere from several hours to several days last month. Internet users on the service provider Bagan Net are having their connections cut frequently.

An editor from a weekly journal told Mizzima, "I think that the closer we come to election day, the more often connections will be cut… People think the junta is doing it intentionally."

Among other violations, the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) website lists nearly 2,200 political prisoners in various prisons across Burma, including "Kandarawaddy" news journal editor Nyi Nyi Tun, who was slapped with a 13-year prison sentence earlier this month. And Reporters Without Borders' just released Press Freedom Index ranks Burma 174 out of 178 countries.

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IFEX members called on the Burmese government and the governments of the ASEAN to ensure freedom of expression, access to information, democratic values and human rights are respected during this critical moment in the electoral history of Burma.

Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly persist, amid the government's failure to contend with the range of rights-abusing laws that have been long used to criminalize free speech and prosecute dissidents.As part of the military's "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine State, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims face rampant and systemic human rights violations, the authorities denied independent journalists access to the region since early October.

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The Broadcasting Law, approved in August, enabled private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time. However, it maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, and the Broadcasting Council it established is susceptible to political interference.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

There is some skepticism about how much influence Burma's youth movement can assert in terms of political change. Still, activists have benefited from greater access to the Internet, which has brought a new side to the online community after decades of heavy censorship

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

The media landscape in Burma is more open than ever, as President Thein Sein releases imprisoned journalists and abolishes the former censorship regime. But many threats and obstacles to truly unfettered reporting remain, including restrictive laws held over from the previous military regime. The wider government’s commitment to a more open reporting environment is in doubt.

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